What We Have Learned in Our 30s

Hi, we’re Rachel and Ashlee. Welcome to episode seven of CapitalMOM Real Life Conversations. Thanks so much for joining us today. We’re really, really grateful you’re here. Hope you enjoy.

• “Good Enough” Parenting: Perfection Not Required

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Ashlee’s August Dimmer

I’m going to start how we usually do with a dimmer. What I’m about to tell you is not endorsed by CapitalMOM.

We have a pool in our backyard. It’s an above-ground pool that’s about three feet deep. And we have a deck over it that we’ve always been tempted or joked about jumping off into the pool. But we’ve never done it. Until the other day. We decided to try it.

I did not think it through all the way. I did it, and I survived, but my heel is not doing great. I landed on it the wrong way and probably am going to be limping for the next few weeks while it heals. It’s not broken, but that’s a dimmer for me.

Rachel’s Vacation Dimmer

When Ashlee told me this story, it reminded me of when we went to North Carolina this summer. I jumped in the pool—I’m not always the “go underwater” type mom, especially if I have clean hair. I took my first jump in, and I stubbed my toe on the bottom of the pool.

I came up and my toe was purple and black. I thought I broke my toe. So those pools, they’ll get you.

Rachel’s Summer Glimmers

This time, I’m just going to give you little glimmers from the summer because I couldn’t think of one big one. So here are a couple little ones.

First, my four-year-old taught himself how to snap. I was so proud of him because he’s the second-born and his older sibling can do all these things that he can’t do yet, and he’s just trying to catch up. So, I was just so proud of him that he was sitting in bed one night and the snapping got louder and louder and we’re cheering him on.

Second, my daughter lost her front tooth that has been loose for five months. She’s been a little snaggle tooth forever. My little hillbilly.

Another glimmer is my now two-year-old had her birthday. When we were singing her happy birthday, she jumped up and down with joy the entire time we sang to her. It was kind of the dream reaction—how you hope your kids would respond to you singing “Happy Birthday,” but it doesn’t usually happen. But this, it was just magic. We had the best time celebrating her with a party.

My last little glimmer was at a wedding. We had just celebrated Finley’s birthday. Two days later, we’re walking into the huge, beautiful wedding venue, and Finley looks at me and goes, “My party?” I was like, yeah. You’re right. We really pulled all the stops for you.

Everything We’ve Learned in the Last Decade

What we decided to do this time is take it back just a little. We were thinking about what we’ve learned since becoming moms. We both became moms in our 20s and now we’re in our 30s. So here’s what we would tell our younger selves about motherhood, womanhood, and growing up.

Don’t Play the Comparison Game

One of the things that first came to mind for me was that when I first became a mom, I remember feeling so overwhelmed and trying to do it all. I thought, “My mom sews, and she cooks, and she cans and she gardens. She has a dairy farm, and she substitute teaches, and our family is doing all sorts of volunteering in our church.”

And I remember becoming a mom and saying, “Oh, my gosh, I’m not doing any of those things.” I remember feeling so overwhelmed. But I paused and realized that when I was a child and actually noticing what my mom was doing, she was already a seasoned mom with twenty or twenty-five years of practice. She’d been doing it for that long by the time I came along and noticed. Plus, I was the last of her children, which I think is a different phase of life.

With that, I realized that I cannot compare my two months’ experience—or even five years’ experience—to my seasoned mom or other seasoned moms and what they’re able to do in their situations at that time. They had to learn, just like I’m learning. And there’s a really good chance she wasn’t doing it all. She just kept trying to show up and be there.

And even if you look at other moms who are in the same stage of life as you, sometimes I think we wonder, “How are they doing it?” But maybe what you see on social media is just the highlights of their life. Maybe they’re really having a hard time and you don’t know it. We just don’t see the struggle in their day-to-day. We don’t see the skill until it’s gained. It’s not always that we video the fail, fail, fail, fail until you get it. A lot of times it’s just, “We got it!” And that’s all you see of the process.

With this, you need to ask yourself “What are all the amazing things I am doing?” Don’t focus on what you’re not doing. For Ashlee as a mother for nearly ten years, she’s working one day a week. She’s pouring her heart and soul into three amazing kids. She has a garden. She has incredible friendships. She taught her children how to sew and play the piano.

If you compare, it’s so easy to not see what you’re actually doing. It’s easy to miss out on the joy and gratitude for what you are accomplishing by just living with your kids and your family and showing up for them. It’s so hard to look at the big picture. You see the little day-to-day, but big-picture, we’re doing amazing. If you can’t see that now, that’s okay. You need time to be able to get big-picture like that.

Process Before Delighting

The next one, I’m going to have to explain for it to make sense, but it’s processing through an emotion before delighting. Here’s what I mean by that. I saw a mom recently post a hard moment on Instagram. This mom wanted to go on a walk by herself. But her three-year-old threw a big fit, saying, “I want to come, Mommy!” She firmly said no, that it was her me time. But that didn’t work and she finally loaded her child into their stroller to go on the walk with her. During the walk, she said she processed for probably twenty minutes, working through the disappointment that the situation didn’t work out the way she wanted it to go.

But then, she processed it and began to focus on the walk with her daughter. She started to notice the little details—her daughter’s hands, dimples and sweet voice. Finally, she was able to delight in her daughter’s presence. She said that in order to get to those delightful moments—or those glimmers, as we call them—sometimes we have to trudge through some muck to get there.

You can honor feelings of anger or disappointment when something doesn’t go to plan because then there is delight on the other side. For example, if your kid doesn’t nap, you’re in that stage where you’re begging them to go to sleep and thinking, “OK, I’m going to carry you downstairs, and I just really don’t want you to be downstairs right now. This is my me time.” There’s probably a bunch of shouting. But then you get through it and they’ll snuggle up next to you and say such cute things. You’ll think, “You know what? You’re so sweet, and I’m so glad you’re here.”

Have a Tribe

This one kind of goes along with our processing tip. Try to keep a girl tribe or friend tribe or whatever that is for you so that when you do need to process, you can call someone who is emotionally available and removed from the situation enough to vent to real quick. These are the people who you don’t necessarily need to sit in the same emotion with you. It’s just someone who will listen while you express how you’re feeling.

For a little while, I relied on my husband. And that’s okay in the beginning and totally normal as you figure out your own family. But actually continuing to have friends outside of just our families is incredibly helpful for our own mental and emotional health, and just being able to step outside of this environment for a little bit, feel a little light-hearted and get other people’s takes and perspectives, is so important.

It helps to truly step out of the responsibilities of home and family and then come back—even if that’s once a month. It doesn’t have to be often.

Plus, I’ve learned that my husband doesn’t want to hear all the little things. At the risk of sounding stereotypical, girls do tend to be more chatty in my experience in life. We just love all the little details, and my husband is more of a problem-solver? Sometimes he comes home from work and he’s in problem-solve mode when I’m not asking you to save the situation or anything like that, because that’s just going to make me feel worse, actually.

For example, I had taken my daughter to violin camp. And when I showed up, they told her, “Here’s your viola stuff.” I froze, thinking, “Viola?” Because she wanted to do violin, even though initially she was maybe going to do viola. So I panicked. Was there a chance that I signed her up for viola on accident?

My daughter looked up at me like, “What did you do to me?” And I just had to keep cool like it was all going to work out. Fortunately, the person checking her in said they’d get it sorted out, but I could see the doubt in my daughter’s eyes, like, “Is there even going to be a place for me?” So I walked out of there feeling terrible.

So I called Darcy, one of my friends. Her daughter was in the same camp. I said, “I just need to get this off my chest real quick.” In that moment, I just need to talk to a friend, not my husband. I needed another mom that understands what it’s like to plan and do the activity, and then have it not go as planned and feel like you failed.

She assured me that my daughter was going to have a great time, and I instantly felt so much better after I got that off my chest and shared it with her and someone else knew.

Not Everyone Will Like You

You don’t have to convince the world to like you. You’re not everyone’s cup of tea. But the people who do delight in your presence are your people, and you should cling to those people that really get you and you get them. It’s most important to show up authentically as you and not spend so much energy trying to convince others that you are wonderful. The right friends will just love you already, you know?

Rather than spending all that energy in the wrong people, invest your time in the ones that really matter to you. This helps you not feel like you’re spread out so thin, too. It’s great to have many friends, but core friends are our focus as we get older and have kids. We’re busy pouring so much into our kids that we don’t have as much bandwidth to have twenty friends like we did in our twenties.

People Don’t Care As Much As You Think

Often, we’re worried about what other people are thinking. In Schitt’s Creek, Alexis says, “Nobody cares, David. Nobody cares.”

We all have so much going on in our lives that a lot of times, we are so hyper-focused on ourselves, like, “Oh, I didn’t put my makeup on before I came to Target today, and I ran into that person. I’m so embarrassed.” But many times, they don’t care. They are so busy living their own life. They probably have something going on that they can’t focus on you. They’re thinking about them.

Just realize that as you get older people don’t care that much about all these little things that you might be stewing about. Care less as you get older about the things that don’t really matter.

Everybody’s worried about their own stuff, so you can release it. Nobody cares. Just go live your life.

Show Up Authentically

Maybe one of the best things that we can offer our kids is just to be our authentic selves, not who we want to be in ten years, not who we were ten years ago, but just who we are right now and what we enjoy right now.

Sometimes, I catch myself being worried about not doing something like I used to or not knowing what I used to. But my kids don’t even know that version of me. They just know who I am right now.

So, I tell them, “I don’t know that right now, but let’s go figure it out together” if they ask me a question that I should have remembered from college. I think that response is even more helpful than if I had all the answers for them.

This also means authentically sharing your passions. I share the piano and sewing with my kids, and my husband shares gymnastics with them. They see our love for those hobbies, and even if they don’t fall in love with those things, it gives them an example of what it looks like to be passionate about something. They feel that energy. They get excited for us. And they’re so responsive. They’ll remember what you enjoy. They’ll know you love flowers, so they’ll pick you flowers all the time.

And they don’t have to like the same things as us. Our passions are just showing them that because you love something, you can do it at any age. The lesson we want them to take away is to chase your passions and continue doing things that make you feel alive—no matter how old you are.

It’s also important to us that they learn how to take joy in other people’s passions, as well as their own passions. I used to worry that if I shared too much of my interests, maybe I’d just create a mini me. I don’t want them to be a mini me. I want them to be their own person. But then I understood that they’re going to choose the things that interest them, and it’s okay to have some interests in common, too.

Let Kids Be Kids

It’s our kid’s turn to be kids. We had our turn to be kids. We did all the things, and now we’re grown-ups. So, it’s their turn to have experiences. So if they find their own passions, it’s our job to help them dive into them more.

Every time we go on family bike rides, we race down the street at the end. My husband and are are pedaling so fast, acting like we’re really racing, but we always let them win because it’s their turn. I don’t need to win. I won plenty of times as a kid. Now it’s their turn.

Letting them win isn’t a bad thing in our family. It makes the memory more fun and sweet as parents. I get to watch my children be so excited that they won the bike ride.

Yes, life is going to happen and they’re going to have times when they lose and where it doesn’t work out. That’s all going to come. But building up confidence and a joy of play before that hits is so helpful. Because if you enjoy it still, you’re probably going to keep fighting for it even when you start losing.

Be Selfish for Your Family

It’s okay to make changes that work best for your family. Separating yourself from your siblings and parents is a transition. Starting your own family is scary. There are a lot of unknowns and a lot of pressure that we maybe put on ourselves about what a family needs to look like or what I need to be able to do with my family or how I picture life with my family is going to be. But then, when you have your family, things might happen that changes that picture.

Recently, I’ve gone through a transition in my faith. That decision alone has created a lot of differences in what I thought my family would look like, but as I’ve been moving through it, I’ve realized that my family is still so beautiful, even if it’s different.

As long as you’re in touch with your partner, it’s okay to adapt and change and continue to communicate what’s important to you and your immediate family. It’s okay to have your family situation look different than the way you were raised or the way you once imagined it would be.

No matter what anyone thinks, you’re so brave and strong to do what’s best for your family and to be in tune with what they need.

Honor Each Version of Yourself

Some people hold on too tightly to past versions of us—how they once knew us. Like, when Ashlee was 18 or 20, this was who she was. Now, she’s changed so much, and I’m not sure that I connect to this new person. That’s okay. They don’t have to. They don’t have to get the new you or like the new you.

You’re supposed to grow and change. That’s the beauty of life—we’re not stagnant. We’re not stuck being the same person that we were. Other people are probably going through their own new versions, too.

You should honor each version of yourself and not look back and say that one version was gross or cringey. That was the best you could do at that point in time. You were showing up every single day, so acknowledge how awesome that is—all while getting you to where you are now. Sometimes, you have to start in the trenches and work your way up.

When you have kids, you can better understand them since you’ve been through that transformation yourself. Maybe they’re going through a hard phase. We can say, “I went through a hard phase, too.” And we can all be there for each other in it, too. Or I can offer you all the space you need. I don’t care about where you are in your phase, aside from wanting to be there for you. We’re going to love our kids and our friends through it.

So, our last piece of advice is to everyone who is doubting their abilities as parents and adults today. Those who are thinking, “Ugh, this is so hard. I don’t know if I’ll make it through.” You will. Where you are now is going to help you get to where you want to be. Just keep trying and pushing. We love you.